the village, and they asked $4 for that. I concluded I would not
take it for two reasons: First, if they had but one cwt. in the
village, they needed it themselves; and next, I did not like to be
shaved well enough to pay that price. They asked $1.50 per bushel for
corn.

Uncle Jo, one of our comrades from Mineral Point, and myself, went
turkey hunting last night (by moonlight.) We rambled some eight or ten
miles, and got back about 2 o'clock in the morning, minus turkeys, not
having seen one.

The day has been excessively warm, and we are in hopes of having grass
soon, which would be welcome as our horses have had nothing of hay kind
but dry prairie grass, which we cut ourselves (and some nights we could
not get that) for the last hundred miles, and we do not expect to find
any more. We cannot camp now without doing it in a jam. There are some
30 or 40 wagons camped around us now, oxen, horses, &c. We are camped
to-night on the Middle Fork of Grand river.

20 miles.

27th. We had a heavy shower with thunder last night: in the morning the
wind was in the north-west, and cold. We left our camping ground early,
and made 26 miles. We passed one small village to-day--Bethany, similar
to the last, i.e. groceries. Have passed through a beautiful country
to-day, alternately timber and prairie, some of it has been settled
eleven years, but we cannot buy a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, or any
hay or straw, or in fact anything to eat for man or beast, with the
exception of bacon, and that raised itself. We were lucky enough to lay
in supplies for both man and beast before we got into this region. It
is a great pity that Missouri is a slave state; were it a free state,
so that free northern men would settle in it, all this great region of
valuable land would be settled and improved, and there is no part of
the western country that can excel the northern part of Missouri in
beauty and fertility. It is better timbered, and watered than Illinois,
and is rather more uneven, but no more so than is necessary to make
good farming land.

26 miles.

28th. Sunday. We started again this morning and travelled ten miles to
the main branch of the Grand river, which we crossed and camped. This
is the last timber before crossing a prairie of 25 miles in width. Some
go on intending to camp on the prairie, but the wind being cold, (from
the north-west) we concluded to lay over until to-morrow. Our camping
ground looks like the camp of a